PUTTING THE SERVICE-PROFIT CHAIN TO WORK“When companies put employees and customers first, their employees are satisfied, their customers are loyal, their profits increase, and their continued success is sustained.” Harvard Business Review, March-April 1994.

There is growing number of companies that includes Banc One, Intuit Corporation, Southwest Airlines, ServiceMaster, USAA, Taco Bell, and MCI know that when they make employees and customers paramount, a radical shift occurs in the way they manage and measure success. The new economics of service requires innovative measurement techniques. These techniques calibrate the impact of employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity on the value of products and services delivered so that managers can build customer satisfaction and loyalty and assess the corresponding impact on profitability and growth. In fact, the lifetime value of a loyal customer can be astronomical, especially when referrals are added to the economics of customer retention and repeat purchases of related products. For example, the lifetime revenue stream from a loyal pizza eater can be $8,000, a Cadillac owner $332,000, and a corporate purchaser of commercial aircraft literally billions of dollars.

Top-level executives of outstanding service organizations spend little time setting profit goals or focusing on market share, the management mantra of the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, they understand that in the new economics of service, frontline workers and customers need to be the center of management concern. Successful service managers pay attention to the factors that drive profitability in this new service paradigm: investment in people, technology that supports frontline workers, revamped recruiting and training practices, and compensation linked to performance for employees at every level. And they express a vision of leadership in terms rarely heard in corporate America: an organization’s “patina of spirituality,” the “importance of...

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...“EmployeesFirst, Customers Second”
1. What was the leadership style Vyneet came with at the beginning of his mandate? Can you give 3 examples of actions he took and which reflect this leadership style and explain?
Vineet was without any doubt a transformational leader at the beginning of his mandate. In fact, just before taking the new role, he mentioned that he would destroy HCLT as it was before. He was very focused on his vision of a brand new transformation process and remarked the importance towards innovation that has the analysis of “what” and the “how” in a transformation journey. For a transformational leader, the “what” of the strategy is very important, but is much more important the “how”.
He acknowledged that the first point of this transformation would be to analyze in deep what is going on in the guts of the company, asking directly to their employees. To do so, he followed the “Mirror, Mirror” strategy, which is a communication exercise that allows the members of the company to look themselves at the mirror and describe what they truly see. Once detected all the needs, he gave an extreme importance to have followers of his vision, and that could only be done by creating an atmosphere of trust towards all the global managers and transmit his vision in the called “Blueprint meeting”, that he expected that those would transmit their commitment and trust...

...After having read the book ´Employeesfirst, customers second´ by Vyneet Nayar, reflect upon the following questions and elaborate your answers. The project must be done in groups of 2-3 max. and be approx. 5 pages long, 12 Times New Roman, 1,5 spacing.
Please consult the materials posted in the blackboard first:
1. What was the leadership style Vyneet came with at the beginning of his mandate? Can you give 3 examples of actions he took and which reflect this leadership style and explain?
2. Why does he decide to turn management upside down? How does he do it?
3. What communication techniques does Vyneet use in order to inspire his employees to follow him and to gain their support of his mission?
SSD, 360 Feedback
As CEO, Vyneet displayed a transformational and unconventional leadership style through his actions right from the beginning. He was so passionate about enabling change that even before taking the job he made sure that his approach was going to be respected and allowed by his boss.
He started his journey as he calls it by creating a need for change and following his own philosophy “mirror mirror” where all the employees across the organization including himself were going to make a thorough assessment of their current situation and feelings towards the company; this consequently was going to be the catalyst that would initiate the real search for...

...Assignment 6.2
Employees as Internal Customers
In recent years, m any employers and employees have been faced with a horrid economic downturn. Many employees have been laid-off, demoted and a slew of other horrible issues. Many employers let go of average employees and retained the high-performers. What seems to be the norm nowadays is to pinch every penny and never give more than what is necessary. This leads to employers devaluing their employees and making high performers feel inadequate and like they can always do more in some way. Devaluing star employees can cause them to want to leave their current employer and provide their services to another, more appreciative company. Many employers do not understand the risk and financial failure they incur when losing a star performer.
In the auto-insurance industry, the claims department specifically (i.e. my target organization) there is a seemingly high turn-over rate. The statistics aren’t readily available for this particular area. However, I’ve been working in this industry for several years and have seen that the retention rate is very low. The claims department is a high volume, high stress atmosphere to begin with. So employers must ensure that they hire the correct people to deal with these types of environments. They must also make certain that they treat their employees...

...difficult to prioritise between employees and customers in the services arena. Both parties prove vitally important in the business operations of a service provider; however this document strives to explore both ends of the debate, that is, the overarching importance of employees and customers. Significant research has been conducted regarding the nature of the two groups, which has aided this critical analysis of the notion thatemployees are more important than customers as well as the counter-argument that employees are indeed more important.
Employees are more important than customers
The importance of employees extends far beyond the mere ability to meet the needs of a customer. As such, the view that employees are more important than customers is highly viable and supported. This importance can be firstly measured through the correlation between valauble employees and company profits. Furthermore, employees have an extensive influence on customers and their subsequent actions through their impact on word-of-mouth, service quality, loyalty and moments of truth; as well as the huge reductions in turnover associated with retention of superior employees.
Relationship between employees and profits...

...investors of First Securities Company of Chicago under Securities Exchange Act of 1934 under Rule 10b-5.
&#61557; According to Securities Exchange Act of 1934 under Rule 10b-5, plaintiff which was the defrauded investor Hochfelder needed to prove that Ernst & Ernst intentionally manipulate the escrows investors.
&#61557; Ernst & Ernst had audited First Securities Company of Chicago for two decades, Ernst & Ernst should have noticed Nay's "mail rule" policy could lead to potential internal control weakness and misleading financial statement.
&#61557; Defrauded investors were not properly informed or obtained information about the securities they invested in "escrow syndicate" account which Nay personally dealt with.
&#61557; Since Nay was the president of First Securities Company of Chicago and he only dealt with his closest friends whom trusted Nay fully, it was hard to detect by others that Nay made these outside deals with his friends.
Questions
1. Under present technical standards, would auditors be required to disclose a company policy similar to Nay's mail rule that they discover during an audit? Explain. Assuming such disclosure had been required at the time this case took place, would that disclosure have resulted in the mail rule being discontinued?
Under present technical standards, auditors are required to disclose company policy similar to...

...growing trend among companies large and small as an attempt to gain a competitive advantage in both local and global markets. There are both positive and negative impacts of this way of doing business that need to be realized and accounted for in order for the economy and American business to remain strong. There are future implications that have not been thoroughly analyzed and will be discovered further down the road. By using several research tools it is possible to piece together what we do know in an attempt to understand what is happening now. There is currently ongoing debate as to whether or not this trend of outsourcing is good or bad for America as a whole.
The trend of outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular as more companies face tighter budget constraints. The decline of the economy has made much company’s look for a competitive edge by for off shoring workers to cut costs. When examining outsourcing there are several key aspects to look at. There are both internal and external pressures that encourage companies to look to outsourcing some of their resources. The outsourcing these company’s use has both positive and negative effects on the organization, stockholders, and employees that are a part of it. When a company chooses to outsource there are long term effects that fall on the areas outside of the company such as the...

...and deliver customer value
4. Describe the elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and mix, and the forces that influence it
5. List the marketing management functions, including the elements of a marketing plan, and discuss the importance of measuring return on marketing investment
Chapter Outline
1. Companywide Strategic Planning: Defining Marketing’s Role
2. Marketing Strategy and the Marketing Mix
3. Managing the Marketing Effort
4. Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment
Companywide Strategic Planning: Defining Marketing’s Role
Strategic planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities.
Defining a Market-Oriented Mission
Mission statement: The organization’s purpose, what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment.
Market-oriented mission statement: Defines the business in terms of satisfying basic customer needs.
Setting Company Objectives and Goals
• Business objectives
• Marketing objectives
Companywide Strategic Planning: Defining Marketing’s Role
The business portfolio is the collection of businesses and products that make up the company
Analyzing the current business portfolio is the process by which management evaluates the products and businesses making up the company
Steps in Analyzing the...